Mousehole report

By Rusty Hodge , Mousehole BBS

FastEddie is Buggy Software

The Toolsmith

Watch out! I have tried using this program several times and had nothing but grief! While it has potential, there are too many dangerous bugs to warrent using this. The last time, I was creating a new file and had the autosave on. I hit cancel the first time the file-name box came up without thinking, and when I quit, it bombed with an ID=03 taking my Tecmar with it!! After some rather exotic manevers, I managed to get the old HD back, but my file was shot for the evening; my first act after getting the disk back was to trash FastEddie. Beware this program! When the bugs are out it'll be good, but until then...

More Draw 1.9 Complaints

Bob Denny

Create a box, type some text while the box is selected, creating a centered text in the box. Group it. Then grab the grouped "object" with the arrow and drag it around in circles, 5 or 6 times. [watch what happens to your text!] You tell me... did they really beta test this software?

QUED Editor 1.21 is out

Steve Brecher

QUED ("Quality Editor for Developers") version 1.21 is now available. Software Supply at 4618 E. 6th St. in Long Beach (me) is a dealer for QUED. The new version provides windows that can be split horizontally and/or vertically into independently scrollable "panes", synchronized scrolling, show invisibles command for control characters, ascii codes command showing characters in their ascii numeric code, tabs and returns used as literals in Find/Change dialogs and it's compatible with the MDS Exec system for those using MDS. QUED is $65 plus tax. Updates free to 1.1 owners.

Death of Typographer?

Tim Celeski

Microsoft has dropped the program [Typographer]. For those of you that don't know what Typographer is... A text and graphics composition program somewhat on the order of Pagemaker though much different in design. It has a pretty impressive technique for handling the size and shape of text blocks and kerning an unlimited document length that made it particularly suitable for manuals, catalogs, etc. Typesetters loved it as it was precise and versatile. Alas, Typographer had problems... bugs, bugs and more bugs... so Microsoft has decided to drop it and Broca Software, the originators may come out with an enhanced version in the spring. I hope so. Though not as easy as Pagemaker to design in, it di d have a number of valuable characteristics...

AppleTalk Release 39

Bob Denny

There is a new release of the AppleTalk drivers on CompuServe MAUG (MACDEV PCS-7 DL8... how 'bout that for givverish!!). Anyhoo, there is a MacPaint file ATLK39.BIN and INSTAL.APP is the new installer. Minor changes for inter-netting (Apple actually tried it!)

Basic Compiler?

Gary Voth

Sorry, but the rumored compiler for Microsoft Basic is not yet available to the public. The closest you can get is a 2.1 runtime interpreter, which will allow you to create a double-clickable stand alone program [runtime license is $250 per year!]. The 2.1 upgrade is said to be somewhat faster than 2.0 however.

MacMemory Board is OK!

Michael Carlton

Memory upgrades by MacMemory to 1.5Mb are a great system. I'm running on one and I love it. [So do I! -Ed.] Features include: 1. Ram disk software that gives you a choice of 1 meg ramdisk with a 512K Mac or a 1 meg Mac with a 400K ramdisk. 2. No roms, rom patches or rom changes needed. This system will work with the new Apple roms, giving you a contiguous 1536K for heap space. [But will the software program they supply need updating? -Ed.] 3. The ram is recognized by the Finder and other applications. 4. No fan is required, as the board adds only 1.3 watts to power used. 5. Best of all, the ramdisk is NON-VOLATILE! You can reboot and recover everything on the ramdisk after a system crash as long as you don't turn off the power. [This feature has been particularly great for me; in fact, it may be safter than disk since I've lost files written to disk in MacWrite when Write crashes, whereas, if it gets on the ramdisk, a crash dosen't bomb the file. -Ed.]

What is MacScheme?

Macowaco

Macscheme is much more than Common Lisp. While it is true that Scheme and Common Lisp look the same and that Macscheme can do anything ExperLisp can with regard to LISP stuff (not graphics, windows or menus), Macscheme contains First Class Functional Objects. . These allow one to have an infinite number of functions that are always available. It also allows functions to make functions to make functions to make... etc. It is really heavy duty. Three major universities have already made it as the standard Lisp for their CS depts. The toolbox access is coming soon too!

ROM Serial Driver Help

Michael Carlton

I'm trying to open the modem and write to it with Megamax C. So far I have been very unsuccessful. It always hangs the first time I try to send stuff out. I'm using:

opendriver( ".AIn", &in );
opendriver( ".AOut", &out);
pbwrite( &paramblock,0 );

after filling in all the blocks of paramblock. This always hangs. Is this the right way to do it? IM isn't very clear about ROM drivers. [ We are looking into the ROM serial drivers. Look for an article in the Jan. issue. -Ed.]

HD-20 Seen

David Robinson

Well, I finally saw one today at the MacFest at Cal Poly. All I can say is WOW! The HSF Hierarchical Filing System as it is now being called is great! Get this, up to 65,536 entrys! The new mini finders (now being called browsers - shades of smalltalk here too -) have pop up menus and you can flip through all levels of the hierarchy from there. What this means is there is no more need for drawers! It's all one big volume. When you ask to open documents from within an application you are given a browser (mini finder) with all documents of that type on the disk. In other words, it does a global search. The speed seems comparable to that of the Hyperdrive and is supposed to surpass it when the number of files is large. Rumor has it that as you know you can daisy chain another 3.5 dirve on the back, but it has already been tried with 4 HD-20's chained and a 3.5 drive and a SCUZY interfaced drive too with no problem! At $1495, you have my vote!

SCSI INTERFACE

Brett

In response to the questions raised on the C board, the SCSI interface is what has been rumored (quite strongly) to be the manor in which Apple will implement an 'open machine'. In fact, I can now address a few other rumors. The display of the new 'mac' will be configurable as well as the memory. The new 'mac' looks more like an IBM, in that it is a box with a keyboard that you attach a monitor to.

MacTutor's Sponsors

for December 1985

MacTutor is grateful for the following companies who sponsored this month's issue of MacTutor. Through their advertising, we are able to continue research and development of the Macintosh programming technology through this publication. We encourage you to contact them about their offerings and mention that you are a 'Tutor fan.

Company Product Type Page

Alsoft MacExpress Devel. 31

A.I. Design Game 62

Atech memory upgrade 71

Bjorklund new editor 31

C-ware C Utilities 18

Capilano Computing Logic hardware 26

Clearlake Research Basic Utilities 41

Computerware Mail order software 14

Consulair C compiler 22

Cross Tech. Memory upgrade 52

Dafax XL/Lisa upgrade 47

Dr. Tom's IM Reference Deck 71

FWB software copy utility 19

Infosphere Mac Networking 42

Invention Software Pascal Products 12

Kriya Systems Neon 48

LM Software New editor 47

MacMemory memory upgrade 3

MacNosy disassembler 53

Macscheme Lisp 31

Mac Underground Technical clearinghouse 30

Mainstay assembler 20

Maximum Mac memory upgrade 68

Megamax C compiler 14

Paragon new editor 62

Portable Software APL 70

Signiture Software assembler 42

Softworks Limited New Basic 2

Step-Lively pascal compiler 42

TML pascal compiler 13

TMON debugger 12

Unicom new fast finder 42